Monday, March 23, 2015

Donner Pass

I thought I would pass this on to anyone that might be interested. It's a picture of Donner Pass, taken on January 31, 2015. Donner Pass is infamous for the plight of the Donner Party, a group of pioneers moving west. They got stuck in the mountains due to the heavy snowfall and had to spend the winter in the mountains. They ran out of supplies and, at least some of them, resorted to eating the party members that had already died.

This winter, Donner Pass, the same one that trapped those people with heavy snow, is completely snow free. In the linked image above you can see the snow line on the mountains in the distance.The latest report by the California Department of Water Resources from March 3 found the snowpack to be only 19% of the long-term average.

The first time I went through Donner Pass was the winter of 1982 and I barely made it. There was a lot of snow on the ground and more was falling. The Interstate was closed within a few hours of my passing through. Not any more.